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September 02, 2009

A few problems found with Photoshop & Snow Leopard

We’re continuing to work with Apple to diagnose & troubleshoot issues that customers report when running Photoshop CS3 and CS4 on Snow Leopard. At the moment we’re aware of a couple of problems:

Switching to the Menlo font (new in Snow Leopard) in Photoshop can cause Photoshop to crash. The simplest option is to avoid selecting and using Menlo in Photoshop.

A bug can cause Photoshop & other applications to crash, particularly during Open and Save operations. We think this problem is the root of the instability David Pogue mentioned the other day.

Dragging an image from another application (e.g. Safari) window to the Photoshop application icon in the OS X Dock doesn’t open the image.

Note that the last two problems are not unique to Photoshop or to Adobe applications. We’re working with Apple to get these problems fixed as quickly as possible. Photoshop QE team members Dave Howe & Jeff Tranberry are tweeting info as it becomes available.

Comments

Murrey Walker — 2:46 PM on September 02, 2009

My last comment to you was signed with a:
AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now I will start with it.
After repeated attempts, and every time getting schlepped to New Delhi, a letter to Lambert Walsh and a post on the PShop forum, I find myself at wit’s end.
My little glitch (which I posted a screen cap on the forum) probably ranks pretty low on the totem pole.
Greater concern is what will happen to the equity ADBE?
Is anyone in the “C” Suite listening?
EOR

No glitches with me running Photoshop CS3 on SL yet… except in Rosetta where the Image Size and Canvas Size cannot be used because the crash the program. Not a huge problem because I only need Rosetta for 4 or 5 filters.

I wait with bated breath for Adobe and/or Apple to fix my constant crashing of Illustrator and Photoshop in Snow Leopard. I have CS3 installed and tried CS4 to see if it was any better, and its not. I can only open a .ai file after about 20 tries. Then try to place a .png, another 20 tries — crashes like crazy. And removing Menlo had no effect. Please keep us updated.

Dennis Govoni — 4:50 PM on September 02, 2009

If you send an image from Lightroom 2.4 (I send a tiff file) to CS4, convert from 16bit to 8 bit and do a “save as” in JPEG, CS4 will crash more often than not. Sometimes saving as .PSD will work and then re-saveing as JPEG will also work but unreliable.
Also, Lightroom 2.4 has crashed for me twice. I also found that using the brush tool to adjust exposure and you have multiple brush events on that image (e.g. 4), it will not send the image to CS4 as it thinks it’s corrupt.

When I paint or use any stamp type / brush tool the outline of the circle goes away now ( intermittently, of course)
Mac Pro dual 2.93 / CS4

Nonny — 5:46 PM on September 02, 2009

Wow, GREAT update guys, so glad you posted this.
After all, we DID need you to tell us what we were doing on our own computers when our shit keeps crashing. Invaluable.

BR — 5:58 PM on September 02, 2009

If there are incompatibilities with Photoshop and Snow Leopard wasn’t Adobe in the loop enough to figure out that there should have been an update at the time of the software release? Or, did Apple blow off Adobe?[As I mentioned, we worked closely with Apple & reported a couple of dozen problems that they fixed. Sometimes, despite everyone’s best efforts, other problems don’t emerge (at least in a reproducible way) until the software is out in the wild. That’s why we continue to work with them. –J.]

I’m guessing everyone else without any real (or just any period) issues is just not posting here, cause I can’t be the ONLY person that so far has had no issues in Photoshop or Illustrator – besides the usual of course. :P
For reference, I’m running 10.6 at home and work, the CS3 suite at work, and CS4 suite at home.
The lone oddity I’ve had with PS CS4 was my PS window (with app frame) simply dimming in the background when I turned on Expose, instead of playing nice with the other windows. But a simple hide/unhide fixed it.
Thanks for keeping us updated, John, even if some people don’t appreciate it. I’m STILL waiting to hear actual reports of known, common problems with CS3 on Snow Leopard, as everyone assumed. (Part of me actually hopes there IS some serious issue just so I can get them to upgrade to CS4 at work, but that’s another story)

ralphdaily — 6:53 PM on September 02, 2009

The Save dialog bug (Bug #2) is an Apple bug that is not limited to PS. Photo Mechanic has a problem with Bug #2. The solution is for Apple to fix in the next SL point update.

Michael P McHugh — 7:16 PM on September 02, 2009

As Alan Valek mentioned above, the main issue I’ve had, which is quite irritating is that brush and stamp cursors disappear once you start painting with them, so you can’t see the bounds of where you’re painting.
-mpm

I’ve always had that last issue. CS3 on Leopard did it. If I dragged an image from finder or safari or anywhere into PS on the dock, then PS would open and I would still have to open the image again anyway.

Murrey Walker — 9:43 AM on September 03, 2009

My pleasure. I hope you have access to the Macintosh Photoshop Users Forum. My post remains unanswered. After my New Delhi, I called Adobe Corporate at: 408-536-6000. I was on hold for eleven minutes before I was referred to Helen Pethick. Guess what I got when her phone picked up?http://forums.adobe.com/thread/484287?tstart=90
If you have no luck in looking at my post, please respond.
Thanks, for your interest!

raul — 12:22 PM on September 03, 2009

We’re seeing weird font issues.
For example Knockout (Hoefler Type Foundry) which is a PS 1 font we use in production and which is a valid font and working under Leopard is not showing up in Adobe Apps after the update. (It works normally in Apple apps).

Bill B — 5:14 PM on September 03, 2009

I have had not problems with CS3 running in 32 or 64-bit, including those mentioned above.

John T — 6:41 PM on September 03, 2009

Over two dozen crashes while either saving CS4 files or placing images/text in Illustrator/InDesign in the last 24 hours since “upgrading” to Snow Leopard.
I’m really p*ssed.

I am at a stand still. I am unable to use Ps or Ai CS4 for any real extended period of time. As reported.. most of my problems now occur with opening or saving a file. My major issues prior to SL upgrade of crashes when moving layers seems to have gone… but that may be because I really dont get a chance to do that.
Wondering if anyone has reinstalled either the applications or OS with or without success..?

Jeff — 12:53 AM on September 04, 2009

Oh, good. I thought the constant (as in several times an hour) crashing while saving was a broken plist file or something specific to me! Good to know it’s not me. I hope they fix it in the coming few days – it is really hampering my work.

I found that if I unplug or turn off my external drive then the crashes stop. So until Apple fixes this problem then I will only be turning on the external drive to do backups.

michae — 4:48 AM on September 04, 2009

I am so glad I looked into this before the upgrade. This is not a good time for any of us to be unable to work. Thanks to all of you that took the plunge. For the last 25 or so years I have run into many things that would stop work flow. You all know what it’s like to be under the gun on projects. If I do the upgrade this weekend I will report. Thanks again.

Thomas W. — 6:25 AM on September 04, 2009

Anybody here tested the whole CS4 suite on Snow Leopard? Am working with Flash most and must say that both Flash and Photoshop CS4 are the worst programs I have on my Leopard installation – especially with spaces acitvated these to crash, do not get focused when changing to them, crash the dock and all kind of weird beta software liek behaviour.
Really would like to upgrade top SL due to the slow feeling my late 06 iMac gives me, but am afraid Adobe did not test as they should have (they also said everything would work fine on Leopard – and it absolutely did not!)

I found a workaround: LR 2 has to run in 32bit mode in order wo work with Photomerge in PS CS4 …
Of course inacceptable mid-term, since LR 2 64 bit worked fine with CS 4 in Leopard incl. 10.5.8.
Of course no response from Customer Support: does a Customer Support@Adobe exist or is a virtual organisation ???

R. Sinclair — 10:10 AM on September 04, 2009

I’m pretty shocked at how badly the ball was dropped here. You would think of all vendors, Apple would test and work closely with Adobe to thoroughly test some of the (if not THE) most important apps on their platform.
CS4 apps, for me, have become completely unusable with these crashes. It seems the testing process involved one guy opening and closing each application in the suite, but not actually doing any real-world testing for any length of time.
This needs to get fixed. SOON.

Joe Citizen — 10:39 AM on September 04, 2009

As disappointed as I am that Adobe and Apple haven’t ironed out all of the kinks before the release of Snow Leopard, I think it is unreasonable that so many people are so angry about the situation. Have you people never gone through a major system update before? Why would anyone blindly perform a major update before ensuring the tools that they rely on daily, and in many cases for work purposes, are not fully functional? Sheer idiocy.

Bernard Languillier — 8:10 PM on September 04, 2009

With all due respect, how can a bug with crashes at save be considered anything by criticaly critical???
Cheers,
Bernard

Chris Cox — 8:25 PM on September 04, 2009

Sure it’s critical, but we’re waiting for Apple to fix it just like you are.
Remember: these crashes are affecting all applications on Snow Leopard. I think Apple knows how important it is to get a fix out soon, and to make sure that fix works correctly.

Greg Rumple — 11:29 AM on September 05, 2009

I’ve only run into one real problem with Snow Leopard and CS3 (I’m waiting for CS5 to upgrade). I run quite a few applescripts from the command line, and I get the following error.
2009-09-05 11:24:58.664 osascript[50529:903] Error loading /Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types.osax/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Unit Types: dlopen(/Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types.osax/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Unit Types, 262): no suitable image found. Did find:
/Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types.osax/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Unit Types: no matching architecture in universal wrapper
osascript: OpenScripting.framework – scripting addition “/Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types.osax” declares no loadable handlers.
This is due to the fact that the Scripting Addition (which is NEEDED to run Photoshop, remove it and Photoshop won’t run) doesn’t have a 64-bit image in it. It has 32-bit and PPC.
I worked around the problem by proceeding all my scripts with “arch -i386” which forces osascript to run in i386 mode and than all is fine.

sjsw — 11:34 AM on September 05, 2009

No Problems here with PS CS3 and SL. I did however do a clean install of 10.6 on a new drive on my Mac Pro and also installed PS and my filters/plug-ins from scratch. I still have my 10.5 system on another drive as backup. I have to admit that I would not have had the courage to upgrade without the ability to isolate the two systems. If you’re running “mission critical” software and you don’t have that option it’s probably best to not be over anxious and wait. If you can’t, I highly recommend a clean install.

Piotr — 1:11 AM on September 07, 2009

John, a quick question – can you tell us when the fix will be released? At least an estimate? I don’t want to downgrade back to Leopard today to see that you guys release the fix tomorrow.[It’s not our bug to fix, so I’m afraid I can’t disclose any details. –J.]

The Real Geeves — 3:04 AM on September 07, 2009

“Dragging an image from another application (e.g. Safari) window to the Photoshop application icon in the OS X Dock doesn’t open the image.”
This is also when you select multiple images – only one of the selection opens.
Very annoying when needing to open 20 or so images… No idea if also a problem on CS4 – this is a problem on CS3.

YUaua — 11:48 AM on September 07, 2009

After losing about a day and half of work from this in the past week I just had to say “Thanks”.
Thanks for saying it was supported (Hooray for Adobe’s notoriously crappy QA). Thanks for selling me a $1,600 suite of software that eats files while saving. Thanks for the late nights and angry customers. Thanks for helping me spend my Labor Day weekend stuck redoing work for the third time.
Most creatives genuinely hate Adobe in spite that they provide software that helps them have a career. And while many hope that there will be some true competition (to make you improve your game), the vast majority have already found the competition: Piracy.
EVERY professional I know (well in the hundreds) uses pirated software. Our studio paid for it. Now, looking at the time spent, the frustration created by bad handling of this situation, and the sheer finger-pointing, we won’t be making that mistake ever again.[You jumped onto a new OS the day it came out, found that its changes are incompatible with your software, blame Adobe, and now feel that justifies theft? Your airtight reasoning goes well with your fake name & address. –J.]

Chris Cox — 12:02 PM on September 07, 2009

Yes, we’ve seen the problems dragging files to the dock icon, and when trying to open files from the Finder. As far as we can tell, this is not due to a bug in the application, but in the way the data is given to the application by the OS. We’ve notified Apple and given them the details, and are waiting for their response.

YUana — 2:22 PM on September 07, 2009

“Jumped to a new OS” –
After Adobe gave the greenlight that CS4 was compatible. Here is a post from your blog announcing this:http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2009/08/adobe_snow_leopard_faq.html
“Found its changes are incompatible with your software.” – The one you said was compatible? Yes. But within 24 hours it was clear that it was not compatible. How long did you test for?
“Justifies your theft” – Maybe you misread (or maybe you could blame this on a Snow Leopard error): We haven’t done any crime. We’re the people that paid money for good software. We are literally the last people we’re aware of who own legitimate licenses. Now I see why.
What is cute is that you insult my integrity while Adobe still publicly states on their website that Snow Leopard is compatible. The problems above aren’t listed in the known issues FAQ or in the Snow Leopard compatibility area. Unless they visit your blog (or a forum swamped with complaints) they won’t know.
Adobe is willingly stealing people’s money and you scoff about my logic. Quit pointing the finger. Accept responsibility for your words and your QA’s failure. And if Adobe hasn’t tested don’t lie to keep selling CS4.

Matthew Vetter — 6:27 PM on September 07, 2009

It’s not just photoshop, its just about every other adobe cs4 application that is crashing on me. Please look into those too.
Thanks

Chris Cox — 8:53 PM on September 07, 2009

Again, all applications on Snow Leopard are crashing. Apple is working on it.

Bernard Languillier — 5:17 PM on September 08, 2009

Chris,
Thanks for the answer, I’ll direct my anger at Apple. :-)
Since I have of course not upgraded my prod machine yet, I am in fact not angry about the existence of such a problem, but more about the typical and totally unacceptable lack of communication around this issue.
Thousands of people are migrating everyday to 10.6 without knowing that they will be running into troubles…
I know, I’ll tell Apple, but I would advise Adobe to post a very clear warnind on your site on this.

Thomas W. — 5:43 AM on September 09, 2009

Nice that Apple is working on it, but wasnt it Adobe that said CS4 i s safe for use on Snow Leopard? Are you testing your software on the systems you say are safe to use? Or are these projects way too komplex so that the same stuff will happen with each new CS/OS release?

grtgrfx — 7:59 AM on September 10, 2009

Wow, and I thought that was only a problem in Windows. Sad to see that multiple file opening has gone a big step BACKWARDS.

Bernard Languillier — 8:57 PM on September 10, 2009

Does 10.6.1 solve the problem?[I’m told it addresses some problems but not all. I’m not in a position to speak for Apple about further changes. –J.]

Chris Cox — 9:03 PM on September 10, 2009

When we tested it, we never saw these problems. We’re still working with Apple to figure out the nature of the problems and why none of our systems showed them. Perhaps the bug was introduced late in the cycle, or perhaps it depends on a retail install, or some other phase-of-the-moon factor that we didn’t have.

Installed 10.6.1 and Photoshop keeps crashing on opening files. Every time. Maybe it’s not only Apple’s fault then?[I don’t know why you’d draw that conclusion, but in any case I don’t want to point fingers. Apple has fixed some bugs with this release, and we continue to work closely with them on remaining problems. –J.]

Ian — 8:04 AM on September 11, 2009

Mine has been very stable today after the update from Apple ![Glad to hear it, and thanks for sharing the info. (People rarely take the time to note that something is going right.) –J.]

Mike Riley — 9:21 AM on September 11, 2009

The bug “opening” files seems to be related to Finder. When I open an image normally, it works, but if I have to search for it in the open dialog box, that’s when it crashes.

Matthew — 1:10 PM on September 11, 2009

My PS CS3 hangs when I try to crop… Seams like I am the only one with this problem.

Matthew — 2:03 PM on September 11, 2009

Disregard this comment… it was trying to crop to 1024 X 576 INCHES not 1024 X 576 PIXELS… duh!

FM — 4:40 PM on September 11, 2009

Same here. iMac CS4 worked perfectly before Snow Leopard. Now crashes when saving. Unibody still works though.

Another bug with InDesign CS3 and Snow Leopard is that if you drag an image to the InDesign window after having used Exposé, the window will be slightly relocated until you drop the image. Then the window will move a bit, and the image will drop in the wrong place.

UPDATE: Ooops, just tried this in InDesign CS4 on another machine and it’s an Apple problem apparently! Same bug happens with Finder windows, though it’s not as noticable there.

Debra Booth — 9:41 AM on September 12, 2009

I have had few problems–with Photoshop CS4 in my upgrade to Snow Leopard. One odd one is when I go to print. Command + P doesn’t work–very odd–anyone have a fix for this? It seems to work in every other application but not in Photoshop.

Daniel Avery — 4:29 PM on September 14, 2009

As far as PS CS 4 and SL, I can’t do very simple things like save or save as without crashing. For a while it was okay, but then it becomes every time. I restart and can maybe get one clean save before the crashing starts again. And that is after erasing my entire HD and reinstalling per Apple’s advice. DW CS 4 is pretty much the same story. I’m about ready to trash Snow Leopard as it’s costing me way too much time.

David — 4:11 PM on September 15, 2009

10.6.1 did not fix my Photoshop CS4 from crashing on saves.
Today is the first day I have had this problem, and I’ve been using 10.6 and CS4 since Snow Leopard came out.
It’s almost been 2 weeks since this issue was found. For an absolute work stopping bug I wish it was already fixed.

HampsterUK — 10:21 AM on September 16, 2009

The only problem I have with 10.6 (and now 10.6.1) is I have lost all use of my Active Fonts in FontAgent Pro 4 working in any Adobe CS4 programme. Tried using Smasher on re-installing the font cache’s, deleted all ‘AdobeFnt11.lst’ files and re-booted the Mac, still no fonts. However, they do work in Apple’s TextEdit so I know they are active on the system. Anyone know how to solve this why I still have hair left! (If so, you’re doing better the software manufacturers). I have had my Mac down for a week now and client’s are screaming!!!

Murphy — 10:50 AM on September 16, 2009

They must scream when they see that you don’t know when to use apostrophes or not, too.

HampsterUK — 1:34 PM on September 16, 2009

The only time they scream is when I have to collect another award for my production on their work. (!)

Mario — 8:19 AM on September 17, 2009

@ADOBE:
How long last does that repair the problems with cs4? That is so ridiculous.
CS4 is not a program for 99$. Accusation at Apple bring nothing. That is genuinly embarrassing.
greeting Mario.

Bradley Dichter — 9:28 AM on September 17, 2009

It’s been suggested that trashing the .plist preferences will resolve the crashing with save. Try it and respond please.

Bradley Dichter — 9:47 AM on September 17, 2009

I’ve been reading elsewhere that Snow Leopard no longer seems to like Postscript type 1 fonts that Leopard worked well with. Try removing any type 1 fonts. See if there is a TrueType or OpenType version or use a conversion utility. Don’ see how this could affect the open issue, but maybe the save part.

Jason — 9:03 AM on September 19, 2009

It’s very interesting that you refer to yourself as professional, yet aimlessly installed a brand spankin’ new OS on your breadwinner? That’s just bad business on your part. Any real professional wouldn’t risk throwing themselves or their clients under the bus for a few flashy new GUI! Patience is a virtue grasshopper!

David Wilkins — 4:33 PM on September 20, 2009

I got lots of problems, crashes especially saving to anywhere but desktop. When I got much the same in TextEdit, Preview etc. I tried creating a new user account and it did not get the same kind of crashes. I have yet to pin down where my old user account got corrupted…

Lichtmalerin — 4:22 AM on September 22, 2009

A “few problems”? “FEW”????? The main problem – several possibilities of crashing PS4 while starting, saving, running batch actions and whatever – kept me off work for days. I finally decided to go back to Mac OSX 10.5.8 due to these problems. It is just a mess!!!! Hopefully there will be a bug fix soon, although PS4/CS4 is not a “get it for a few bucks” software …. :(

Maggie Merrill — 11:47 AM on September 22, 2009

Any idea why Photoshop CS4 keystrokes suddenly stop working and menus gray out while running Snow Leopard? Even “Quit” goes gray, which means forcing a quit, restarting and holding my breath while hoping Photoshop’s functionality remains active long enough for me to get some work done.

Crashing hard every minute here.. I can barely work using Photoshop CS3 Extended on Snow Leopard. I bought it about a year ago. How can I justify buying Adobe in the future if there is no support. Calling on the phone doesn’t do anything since no one picks up the phone over there. WHAT A MESS?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE FIX! FASTER!!

Tried the way of re-installing everything, too. Unfortunately no success. Now I’m working with OS 10.5.8 and everything works. Don’t mind to install SnowLeo before at least two more updates. Things like these simply suck! :(

UGH! Reading all this. My menues disappear, Force Quit has been a normal part of my work flow since I installed Snow Leopard. Brushes in PS4 don’t work. How do I go back to previous OS? HELP. I’m starting not to sit down to work on photos any more because I’m so ANGRY!

joshua hoffman — 11:32 AM on September 25, 2009

Ever find a fix for this? I’m still having problems with keyboard shortcuts and greyed out menu options..

@Manuel: Getting back to previous OS is simple – in case you have a backup via TimeMachine. Insert System DVD, click first “install”, then choose in the menu bar “restore from backup”. So far for the “quick and dirty” solution ;).
IMHO the better way: Installing the previous OS on a formatted/clean HD and setting up the complete system. More work than the first solution but avoids to restore smaller bugs with the backup ;)
In both cases: Don’t forget to deactivate PS/CS4 BEFORE changing the OS!!!!
P.S. I use to clone the system HD with CCClone. in case of trouble with HD, I simply change it, restore data etc. with latest TimeMachine backup, done. (Depends on hardware configuration of work station, f.e. more than one HD bay.)

PO'd — 2:35 PM on September 27, 2009

so when does this get fixed??!!!!!!! i’ve wasted more time on this – making only so much progress before PS crashes before or while saving, losing ALL my changes. my mac shipped with snow leopard so i don’t think i can even go back very easily to an earlier OS (my previous system was running jaguar anyway)… when PS does work, the keyboard commands don’t work, so what is the point? didn’t they test this stuff? this is the basic functions of the software. when is the fix coming? adobe, are you listening???? when did you guys become quark?

Pretty annoying all round I’d say… After the upgrade to SL, Illustrator CS3 doesn’t seem to want to let me print (on my Epson Photo R1800) with either their “GutenPrint” Driver OR the updated 6.2.3 driver that I’ve now installed. Apple have suggested re-installing Ill CS3 which I’ve done. Still nothing.
The message I’m getting after the Print dialogue box is “Can’t print the illustration.TheColour Management Settings are inconsistent”.
I have tried EVERYTHING i can think of. Any ideas?

Cecil Hatfield — 12:26 PM on September 29, 2009

CS4 was working well with Leopard but with Snow Leopard is totally unusable.
All operations are painfully slow.
I have a 24′ iMac 3.06
What a total mess!

Pissed Mac User — 8:19 PM on September 29, 2009

Why are you complaining to Adobe about bugs that affect all applications on Snow Leopard? Why aren’t more people demanding that Apple fix their bugs?

Michael Conti — 4:44 PM on September 30, 2009

i’ve noticed a possible big bug in cs3 with snow leopard. several of the fonts in hd/library/fonts do not load in cs3 applications, but will show up in apple apps like pages or text edit. what i’ve noticed not show up in ilustrator or photoshop are:
verdana
trebuchet
arno pro
i use font agent pro for font management, but do not have it mess with the system fonts, and all fonts are de-activated.

I often wait to install updated software because it might be buggy and I don’t have time to deal with it.
Snow Leopard isn’t the normal update though. It didn’t claim to have new fancy features, it claimed to be more stable. So I approached it more like a bug fixing update which I could install right away.
I was wrong, the marketing was false, days were lost.

Daniel — 5:36 AM on October 03, 2009

I have also the same problems with CS4 PS on 10.6.1 mentioned above.
Hangs on batch processing (like creating panos). Very bad Image allgnement result, (when a pano job doesn’t crash once in a while).
And so on… and so forth!
ADOBE! WAKE UP! STOP TALKING RUBISH… IT’S TIME TO FIX THAT CRAP…
Me as customer it doesn’t care who I have to kick.
I simply want to have CS4 running like promised from Adobe!

Instead of simply blaming Apple or Adobe for the issues: nobody here mentioned the product activation component of CS4 yet?! At least OnOne Software’s plugins have not been working correctly on SL due to the product activation they use – the process was also mentioned in my crash reports. See also http://www.ononesoftware.com/blog/2009/10/08/snow-leopard-update-10809/ for an update they issued today.

PS has got its own activation system, of course. But I found the system used by OnOne in my crash reports as one of the running tasks, even without PS running. Not sure about the system used by Adobe, but at least worth a look.
But, maybe really good news: Wacom has (finally) a driver for Snow Leopard, download at http://www.wacom.com/downloads/driver-detail.php?id=201 . After updating, the system preferences now work without restarting in 32bit-mode and PS and Lightroom seem to work without crashing (well, let’s see…).

Nils Petter Nilsson — 8:49 AM on October 13, 2009

Please! What is happening on with the CS4 and Snow Leopard crashing issue??
This page was originally posted on the 2nd of september!!! A month ago!!! I use CS4 professionally, not as a toy. And this bug causes me MAJOR problems in my work!! When can we expect an update??[The update has to come from Apple, and I’m not in a position to speak about their release schedules. –J.]

somyos — 11:35 PM on October 14, 2009

I have problem with Ai CS4, crashes every time when I opened a file through spotlight search in the app itself, but work fine when I opened a file by browse through folder manually.

somyos — 11:41 PM on October 14, 2009

Try open by browsing through folder instead of using spotlight search in the Ai open screen. It works for me no more crashing when opening file

Bob Kemp — 11:29 PM on October 16, 2009

Photoshop crashes often when trying to save. Especially when saving as jpegs. Many of the same issues as the other people here. I can’t believe I payed so much money for it not to work. I will be thinking twice before buying another Adobe app unless this gets fixed soon. Although looking at how long this post has been up (how long has it been? a month?) I won’t be holding my breath.

Bob, are you reading any of the comments from John or other users? This is a problem that can affect all applications on Snow Leopard.
Are you posting threats about not purchasing Apple products on Apple’s website as well?
There are many development companies working with Apple on a fix for this.
Snow Leopard users experiencing crashing when saving from applications have reported these as potential ways to eliminate or minimize the problem: http://bit.ly/2JGUjb
Other users have reported creating a new user account on Snow Leopard helping.

Henry — 7:39 PM on October 17, 2009

Thanks, Jeffrey, for the pointer to http://bit.ly/2JGUjb. Solution #2 made a major improvement for PS. I understand what you’re saying about this being a operating system issue but Adobe needs to make that fact much better known to it’s customers. Thanks again.

Henry. Thanks. We need to be careful about getting into any sort of blame game. Adobe and Apple work closely together to work out issues between our products. That said, some issues don’t become apparent to either of us until hitting the broader market. We (the Photoshop development team) are trying to be as open as possible (with blog posts like John’s, knowledge base articles on Adobe.com, and Dave Howe and I in direct contact with users on Twitter) about the known issues affecting people along with workaround until there is a fix and it’s been tested. Things are never as easy and cut and dry as some folks would make them seem. Blaming one side over the other isn’t going to solve the problem. Examining the issues and working together to fix and test the problems thoroughly is.

I fould that after loading snow leopard the font tool in photoshop is very “buggy” by which I mean when scrolling through potential fonts in the drop down menu to use on highlighted text in a document it only shows a few fonts in the drop down menu before the font sample or the name or both are no longer visible in the menu although selecting one of these invisible place holders from the drop down menu does reap resultsand changes the document’s font it is nonetheless a serious glitch for the font fanatic. The other new thing it does is that the document’s font no longer dispays a new font on mouse over in the drop down menu meaning I have to actually select the font and wait for the change instead of sampling fonts by simply mousing over selections in the dropdown menu, a real pain in the arse. Thnaks for listening.

Simon Goss — 2:48 AM on October 22, 2009

I’ve had a problem with knockout (and some other H&FJ fonts – Gotham and Whitney) not showing up in Suitcase – they work fine when installed in font book however.

Michael — 8:35 AM on October 26, 2009

Unfortunately it is not only PS or the CS, that crashes while “saving as”. Working with C4D (a 3D application) it’s impossible to load textur files or other C4D files. Any action leading through the OS causes a crash of the application. Sometimes I have to take the way over my old G5 to get to my aim.
Can anybody see a solution on the horizon?
Michael

Peter — 8:39 PM on October 26, 2009

But the answer is WHEN? Its been two months and it doesn’t seem like there’s any progress. I’d wait for the updates, but unfortunately Leopard itself is garbage (basic search functions don’t work and it stalls frequently) and its screwing with my ability to get work done. However, if you can’t guarantee that CS3 works with SL, then we’re stuck.
On behalf of all of us in the “broader market” we’re tired of bug testing your software for you. And yes, I’ll be happy to tell Apple the same thing.
P.S. The link to the “fix” you mentioned doesn’t work anymore.

Tim Perriguey — 1:39 PM on October 27, 2009

Can you tell me exactly what you modified and how you did it? I’m having the same problems with Scripting Additions, even though it’s all running in the background, as far as I can tell.

There is also a problem/bug in Photoshop CS3 and CS4 under Snow Leopard. If you have an image, not just one color, on a layer and select outline, inner, in the layer effects dialog – the image gets pixeled. Outer and middle work perfect.

Guys, I had all these same problems that you have. But, I made the downgrade yesterday from SnowLeopard to Leopard. Erase my disk, installed the Leopard, installed all the applications and other programs such as Adobe CS4. Then I made the update to SnowLeopard from DVD installation and works fine. No problems or crashes, it seems that all the bugs that we reported are gone.
So here is my suggestion: make the downgrade. It works!!!

RedaLeBlanc — 4:34 AM on November 07, 2009

Guys, my only problem with photoshop CS4 is when I use the font tool cause a crash immediately. Can Anybody see a solution for this ? Thank you and sorry for my bad english ;)

Kevin — 2:10 PM on November 09, 2009

10.6.2 fixes the Menlo font crashing issue.
-Kevin

Andrew — 2:02 AM on November 10, 2009

Open GL support in CS4 is still buggered after the 10.6.2 upgrade but I guess this is something adobe has to fix. If I untick the “Enable Open GL Drawing” in preferences then it’s fine and I don’t get purple and yellow pixels all over the document.
Since installing 10.6.2 though I have had photoshop cs4 crash 3-4 times on quit. Looks like when saving a document photoshop no longer hangs though. Overall it seems a lot more snappier.

hold on fellows, no use in venting out the anger on adobe, you fellows should know before upgrading your OS if a software is compatible or not ( it is always advisable to contact TS first before your upgrade your OS. Same applies to windows users as well )

David — 6:53 PM on December 21, 2009

* bump *
Lightroom 2.5 > Photoshop CS4 > Save as JPG > Crash at least 30% of the time. Waited months to upgrade to Snow Leopard thinking things would be stable by now.
Have taken every SL and Adobe update… have tried both suggestions in http://bit.ly/2JGUjb
Many hours of work lost.
Frustrating…
— David

Joel Sindelar — 4:18 AM on December 24, 2009

I have to force quit photoshop cs4 every time I use it- Quit is greyed out. Haven’t noticed keystroke problems yet, probably because I haven’t done anything cokplex in a while, just scanning. I’m running it in Rosetta mode because my scanner is TWAIN and unsupported, which is likewise sad.

bec — 11:38 AM on January 08, 2010

David, I think this problem was resolved with 10.6.2. Another thing that seemed to work for some people prior to 10.6.2 was to run Lightroom in 32-bit mode.

Reed Richards — 10:53 AM on January 31, 2010

Nack is an idiot. Adobe is sluggish. People are still having problems![A) Thanks. B) Please be more specific so that we can actually investigate/fix whatever is bugging you. C) It must all be Adobe’s–and only Adobe’s–fault. When things were fine on 10.5.x and then broke on 10.6.0, that was Adobe’s fault, right? And when Apple then patched their OS a couple of times and the problems went away, that was… well, what the heck, let’s say it’s Adobe’s fault. Consistency counts! –J.]

Jovan — 8:37 AM on February 02, 2010

hi Actually I just started having this problem (progress in cropping an image takes 3 minutes) after I did an apple update with new security updates (Jan. 2010 auto update). Any solutions?

Seriously, I have pulling my hair out for days! My CS4 on snow leopard does NOT batch process; anyone else having this problem?!?!? What to do?!?!?

Paul — 12:25 PM on February 04, 2010

I have just bought a new iMac with Snow Leopard and am having no end of trouble with Type 1 fonts and Photoshop CS3.
It’s like this: I am a graphic designer and I started a corporate identity project for a non-profit (therefore there’s no money to go and buy all new fonts – I am doing the job very cheaply to support a cause I believe in). I completed the print elements of the project on Tiger on a G5 about 6 months ago.
I am now re-designing their website on Snow Leopard but I can’t carry all of the typographic styles through in the graphics because Photoshop CS3 is not recognising ANY of the Type 1 fonts used in the print campaign! This is INCREDIBLY frustrating.
Please, someone provide a fix. Is there a workaround for this problem? I’m at my wits end.
I’ve been a Photoshop user and customer since 1990 and I am in utter disbelief that there’s no support for this program which I only bought 12 months ago.

ok people, it’s march 2010 and i just bought snow leopard to as an upgrade to leopard. after reading these problems with adobe products, i’m not soo sure now … what’s up?

Chris Cox — 1:17 PM on March 15, 2010

Since Snow Leopard was initially released, Apple has fixed many of the problems in dot release updates.
Apple is still working on fixes for some additional issues in Snow Leopard.

Maggie Merrill — 3:09 PM on March 30, 2010

It’s now almost April and I am still having the problems of menus going gray on me, and keystrokes ceasing to work. Twice I’ve uninstalled Photoshop CS4, done a CS4 Clean Script, and reinstalled the software — only to get a message that there is a problem font (but not which one) that prevents the full installation. THEN, a window comes up telling me Photoshop has been installed. After using it, the same issues with the greyed-out menus and “dead” keystrokes continue to plague my work. This experience will make me resistant to upgrading anything that works in the future.

I just switched to mac a couple of weeks ago because I was tired of all the PC problems. Now I will have to go back to using my PC for PS CS4 because of all the problems using it in Snow Leopard.
Not counting the crashes, my layers menu and palette are constantly graying out and I can’t use any of the layers features. Its hard to work without the use of the layers options. Also, the quit Photoshop choice is also grayed out and I have to force quit or either reboot to get out of PS.
Has anyone else had this problem?

scott graham — 5:19 PM on April 11, 2010

CS4 works fine for me on Snow Leopard. Could you conceivably have an incompatible “something” loaded?

I just switched to Mac and am having the same problems with CS4 -grayed menu’s and having to force quit. In order to get any work done, I am having to go back to working on my PC – after spending all this money to go Mac.

sendblink23 — 6:05 PM on April 20, 2010

For me on Snow Leopard completely new clean install, did all the updates now at 10.6.3, same for the complete suite of Adobe CS4 master Collection all its updates… and still many of them crash on closing & Illustrator doesn’t even start up… it simply crashes.
I have tried about everything deleting duplicated fonts, making a new user account, deleting illustrators pref files (plist & folder) & support files as well … did the file sharing turning off then turning it back up log out log in… repairing disk permissions, uninstall cs4 & reinstall… etc… just about everything… nothing seems to fix anything for CS4 on me.
I wished CS3 worked on 10.6.3, but read allot around that update killed it….. should I try installing CS3 7 forget abotu cs4…. just to test?

rwaltz — 9:59 AM on April 21, 2010

I’ve been working with a user for months trying to resolve crashing CS4. I recently wiped and rebuilt her MacPro and PS crashes as frequently as ever. Error code is always
GetDstBits32BGRA; however, she has reported that a new error has cropped up when she does the following:
1. I open Photoshop
2. I select 2 files to open
3. I receive an error that says “could not complete your request because of a program error”
4. I click “ok”
The error window will not dismiss.
5. I force quit Photoshop and re-open it
6. I have to open ‘those’ 2 files separately in order to not get the window to pop up.
7. I CAN open any other two files at once without getting the error.
We have been troubleshooting this since December 2009 and are very frustrated.
Any other troubleshooting tips would be greatly appreciated.

@rwaltz Is this on Snow Leopard? I’m assuming you tried resetting the prefs and disabling all plug-ins? (hold down [cmd] + [option] + [shift] immediately after you launch Photoshop and choose [Yes]] when it asks if you want to erase your prefs. To disable plug-ins, add a ~ to the beginning of the plug-ins folder name “~Plug-ins” and relaunch the app)
The other question I’d have is what video card does that Mac have. Feel free to email me jtranber at adobe dotcom

fansman — 9:13 PM on May 03, 2010

Just upgraded to SL with CS3 and system refuses to recognize all fonts except for system fonts. Real nice. To bad I am yet another sucker who relies on Adobe and Mac for my living.[I’m sorry to hear about this. Having said that, if everything worked fine before & Apple’s changes broke Photoshop, why is that Adobe’s fault? Why do Mac fans NEVER demand that Apple take responsibility for anything (e.g. Flash being slow on Macs)? –J.]

fansman — 9:34 PM on May 03, 2010

I am blaming Apple yet the relationship between them an Adobe is synonyms in the design community.

syd harper — 12:02 PM on January 10, 2011

I have had snow leopard and cs3 photoshop since I got this computer. It will be 3 years in April. I have been having trouble with cs3 crshing and needing to be re-installed almost daily. I have been told by adobe that I need to upgrade to cs4 or 5. Flatly cannot afford to do that, so I finally bought elements8. I should have asked first but didnt, does it work under snowleopard? If not I will send it back and get elements 9. Thanks for any fast replies in advance. Ms_syd

Liz — 7:55 AM on March 24, 2011

I have had a flawlessly opperating snow leapord for 3 years. I made all the upgrades, even to 10.5.8 at which point it functioned as usual. I purchased and installed adobe master collection 2 weeks ago and now experience every disbility listed above. I am experiencing buyers’ remorse to the worst degree. I have lost so much time and sleep due to anxiety related to these issues. I simply hope apple and adobe can work together to resolve this inconvienience.